The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs in business have been those who took major financial risks to establish a new corporation or patent a new product or do the necessary research to create a new breakthrough for science or medicine. In like manner, the world needs political leaders who take risks for people whose needs are great and whose ability to meet those needs may be almost non-existent.
In economically affluent nations all over the world, there are millions of asylum seekers from war-torn lands who are desperately trying to emigrate to more stable countries, first, for their own safety, and second, for opportunities to improve life for themselves and their families. In most cases, these would-be “green-card workers” are young people. Only they have the courage and the energy to contemplate leaving their homes for faraway places with strange-sounding names.
Many affluent states need many more workers. One of the reasons that is true is because many young couples in advanced states have chosen to bear fewer children, and thus in the future there will be fewer workers unless measures are taken to overcome the shortages. In most advanced nations, particularly since the onslaught of Covid, there is already a serious shortfall of workers.
Legislators in democracies naturally tend to legislate on the basis of what they think the voters want. A majority of voters never want more immigrants coming into their homelands, but their homelands may need more workers. It is politically risky for politicians to take actions that voters do not approve. In this case, however, humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers may quickly advance the economic wellbeing of already advanced nations, so the risk is worth the uncertainty it inevitably evokes. To validate that hypothesis, consider how many current leaders in American business, medicine, education, religion, or the military have “foreign-sounding” (i.e. non-European) names. They grew up here because their parents were allowed to become immigrants here. Thousands of future American leaders not even born yet have parents who are trying to become Americans.
Increasing health benefits for citizens can be politically risky, but the benefits to the entire society may redound to the betterment of everyone. If people are healthier, they can be more productive. Fiscally-conservative legislators usually resist increasing expenditures for anything, but politically entrepreneurial risk-takers know that capital must be expended to make more capital. Major progress is seldom accomplished by the faint-hearted.
Increasing Social Security benefits for low-income oldsters may require otherwise reluctant legislators to go against their own political principles. However, if they cast timidity aside, and raise the levels that the wealthy must pay into the Social Security system without restoring the entirety of that increase back to the wealthy, they may actually lower the amounts of money the federal government will have to expend for hungry or sick older citizens. Wealthy voters may not like such a policy change, but it can bolster the wellbeing of the whole populace.
Acting with humanitarian impulses may seem counter-intuitive to political and fiscal conservatives. Nevertheless, in the end, it may improve the economies of the nations their conservatism is intended to protect. What the world needs now, besides “love, sweet love,” is altruistic humanitarianism which necessitates political and financial risks. Legislative “entrepreneurs” can change the world fairly quickly, if they summon the courage to take risks that the taxpayers understandably lack.
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.